A true Olympic athlete
So, in January, I did A couple of blogs about abortion. Some of them got me a lot of flak, but most of them went pretty much unheeded.
Can you defend your stance on abortion, whatever that stance may be? Defend it with logic and reason, rather than emotion? Just curious.
Cool story about a woman who made a nobel choice: Tasha Danvers-Smith gives up shot at an olympic medal to be a mother. She is one of the best hurdlers in the world. She had qualified for the olympics, and then withdrew. Why? Because she and her husband got pregnant.
“I cannot lie, I considered an abortion. On the one hand you look at the situation and say, ‘I can have a baby and incur more costs, more problems.’ We don’t even have a house yet, we are staying with Darrell’s parents. And I am the major breadwinner. “When my body is my business, then if my body is not functioning, there is no business. “So the thought did cross our minds as an option. But this line from the Scriptures kept coming into my head: ‘For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’.
I mean, who would have faulted her for having an abortion? It would make sense, financially, emotionally, career-wise? This was her dream, her life, her goal!
Fortunately Mrs. Danvers-Smith is looking to something a lot more solid than economics, personal advancement, and human reason for making this decision.
I applaud you, Tasha Danvers-Smith.
Put this one on a tee and let me have a swing:
Last year a couple co-workers were on a very loud rant in our office on the “hypocrisy of right-wingers” who oppose abortion but support the death penalty. People all around were obviously bothered by the noise, if not by their stridency.
Finally, after about 15 minutes, I just blurted out, “One is innocent and the other is guilty. That’s the difference.”
They shut up, stunned, I think.
“I suppose the most logical stance is to be anti-abortion and anti-death penalty,” I continued, “but it defies logic to be pro-abortion and anti-death penalty.”
Then the woman came over to my desk and leaned over into my face and shouted, “You can’t tell me what to do with my body!” (This is in an office full of people, mind you, who had all got kind of quiet.)
I said, “I’m not tellling you what to do with your body. You just have to decide if that embryo is a person. I happen to believe it is a person. If you don’t believe it’s a person, then have an abortion. But if it is a person, then you have to decide if having an abortion is an OK thing to do.”
That basically ended the discussion. Nobody else in the office spoke, but I got a few quiet electronic messages from people saying they agreed with me.
I’ve never understood the logic of “it’s my body and you can’t tell me what to do with it.” You really have to be in denial about the little body growing inside you to take that stance.
But you know, many people are confused and approaching decisions on a post-modern relativistic basis, and we shouldn’t be surprised.